Vampire Weekend

New York City rockers Vampire Weekend created one of the most-imitated trends in modern guitar music with their eponymous 2008 debut album which fused clean-cut, alternative rock stylings with an innovative approach to African rhythms. The album was a critical and commercial success, going on to be voted into the top 500 albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in 2012, and the quartet (singer and guitarist Ezra Koenig, bassist Chris Baio, keyboard player Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson) were quickly accepted into the classic pantheon. The 2010 follow-up Contra met with similar acclaim and success, with a third album, Modern Vampires of the City, released in early 2013.